Chapter 1
Sergeant Duke Lukela and Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett were quietly discussing a case when a pretty light brunette woman joined them. In white slip-on shoes, navy slacks, and a light pink polo shirt, her hair in a bun, the woman barely reached Steve's armpits. She was cute, though, Steve thought, and returned the smile she gave him, which caused her ears to turn pink and a blush to stain her cheeks.
Duke glanced up at the woman. "Radar; who's doing what?"
"The scruffy-looking mutt they just brought in?" Radar said.
"Yeah?"
"He's sky high and about to come crashing down," she said.
"How bad?"
"Atomic. Two, maybe five minutes, tops."
Duke groaned softly and gestured at two nearby cops. They joined the group. "Radar says we've got a twitchy fighter and he's gonna blow."
"Damnit," one cop groused.
The second cop didn't even get to say anything when the suspect suddenly let out a strangled yell and attacked a nearby prisoner. Steve joined in on the fight, temporarily forgetting about Radar.
Then, once the subdued suspect was being hauled away, did he remember her.
She had moved behind the desk and was watching the activity.
"Commander Steve McGarrett, Five-0 Taskforce," he huffed, offering his hand.
"Millie Thompson, HPD Admin Assistant," she said, her hand all but disappearing in his. "I've seen you around. You and your team do good work."
"Thanks. Why does Duke call you Radar?" Steve asked.
"Because what you just heard her warn us about, she does that all the time," Duke answered, rejoining them. "It's like she's got a sixth sense about these things."
Millie shrugged. "I just watch people, and because I don't wear a uniform or a badge, they ignore me." She tilted her head, going silent, her eyes following two men being moved to the waiting area. "Keep those two separate; the blue shirt guy is harmless but the yellow bird-brain has his eyes set on him and is itching for a fight, with Mr. Blue his target."
Duke quickly moved to do as she recommended, just as Mr. Bird-brain suddenly tried to attack Mr. Blue. Unfortunately, in the scuffle, one cop wound up with a bloody nose.
"Paperwork's gonna be a bitch," Millie said, eyebrows raised. "Nice meeting you, Commander."
"Likewise, and it's Steve," he said.
"Steve," she repeated, smiling, a blush creeping through her hairline, before she walked away.
She had a nice tush, Steve thought absently, watching her backside.
"Now you know why we call her Radar," Duke groaned, rejoining him.
"What do you know about her?" Steve asked.
"Good worker, friendly, been here about six years, I think. Never really says much about herself, but she's good at her job," Duke said, shrugging.
"Family? Friends?"
"Not that she's ever said. I get the feeling she lets people see only what she wants them to see, and nothing more. Some people are like that."
"Huh." Then his cell phone rang; it was his partner, Detective Sergeant Danny Williams, with a new lead on their case. After that, Millie "Radar" Thompson was put out of his head until two weeks later.
"No one ever told you
I love to hear ya sing.
No one dressed you up in silk
And flashy diamond rings.
Ah, but someone feeling sorry
Is one thing you despise, baby
You don't need no man to sympathize..."
The unfamiliar bouncy country music caused Steve to halt in his tracks. Then his nose caught the pleasing scent of fresh-brewed coffee. He held up a hand to silence his friends as they joined him. They were all feeling a little grubby from a recent take-down and were in no mood to deal with a stranger in their office.
Then a woman in dark brown slacks, light blue short-sleeve blouse, and brown slip-on shoes appeared from the staff kitchen, sipping a cup of coffee. She raised an eyebrow when she saw them.
"Millie," said Steve, recognizing her.
"Steve," Millie replied. She glanced at the rest of the crew. "You guys look a little beat there. What did you get yourself into this time?"
"We just finished a take-down of some major gang members," Steve admitted. "Been after them for a while."
"Charming bunch, I'm sure," Millie replied. "I'll give you a few hours to get yourselves cleaned up and then I want the incident reports on my desk."
"That's all fine and dandy," Danny cut in, "but, uh, exactly who are you?"
"This is Millie Thompson," said Steve, coming close to the petite brunette, who had her hair back in a bun. "She's an Admin Assistant for HPD."
"Not anymore," Millie said. "Governor Denning made me a very nice offer a few days ago. Seems you guys have a habit of not always getting your paperwork in on a timely fashion, so I was invited to try and fix that."
"Uh-oh," Captain Lou Grover mumbled.
"Uh-oh is right, Captain Grover. Some of you aren't too bad, but there are the occasional slips. As for the rest of you? I'm going to ride your ass like you ain't never seen." Millie smiled and raised her coffee mug in salute. "Welcome to a new level of Hell, boys and girls; mine." And she sauntered to an open office door.
Detective Lieutenant Chin Ho Kelly chuckled. "You're the one they call Radar, aren't you?" he called.
"A friend stuck me with that nickname years ago," Millie called back. "I've been called worse, trust me!"
"Does she even have the experience to deal with us?" Danny asked.
"I don't know," Steve admitted. "Let's get ourselves cleaned up and find out."
What they found out was precious little and very basic.
"I spoke to Duke about her two weeks ago; he knows her," said Steve, "but says no one really knows her. Seems she keeps her private life private."
"Same here," said Officer Kono Kalakaua. "She's good at her job and can be a terror with paperwork, but no one knows her outside of work."
"Which fits with what little I could find on her. Millie Susan Thompson, twenty-seven. A certified Administration Assistant and Legal Aid, both from community colleges in Portland, Oregon. Moved here about six years ago, lives in the same apartment since she came here, over on Sunset Road," said Chin. The team was gathered around the computer table and Millie's picture was on the screen. "She changed her name from Wilma May Bryant to Millie Susan Thompson just after she turned eighteen. Court records don't say why. She has a gun license but no record of owning a gun. Only other thing I could find was a sealed juvie file under her 'before' name, and unless we get a warrant, that file isn't opening any time soon."
"And there's no need to," said Millie, joining them. "I made a mistake when I was fifteen and I paid for it, and that's all I'm going to say about that. Other than that, if you want to know something about me, ask."
"Okay, why the name change? Wilma to Millie I can understand, but why the other two?" Lou asked.
"We all have things in our past we'd like to forget about," Millie replied. "Name associations are often one of them. Thompson was my grandmother's maiden name and probably the only blood family that ever gave a damn about me. Susan is the name of the detective's wife who helped me get my head on straight." She held up her right hand, where a pretty diamond ring sat on one finger, and began ticking off her fingers. "I like my coffee fresh and hot, especially first thing in the morning. I have a cat I call Lunkey when he's being affectionate and Lunkhead when he does something stupid, like try and steal my neighbour's steak for the uptenth time."
"Why Lunkhead?" Kono asked, grinning.
"Because that's what I called him when he scared the hell out of me during a bad storm. He had his face pressed against my bedroom window, the power has just gone out, and lighting flashed," Millie admitted.
"You screamed," Chin guessed, grinning.
"Right out of a horror movie," Millie said. "Then I let him in, called him a bloody lunkhead, tried calling him something else, but the fuzz-brain will only answer to Lunkhead. Mind you, that's not what the cat groomer called him when I took him down for a full body shave."
"What!" Danny yelped, watching as Millie quickly accessed her FaceBook profile and pulled up a photo of a very angry-looking brown and black kitty, causing laughter from the team. "Why on Earth would you shave a cat? Do you have a death wish? You must!"
"His fur was so badly matted I had to have it shaved off," Millie admitted. "Even the groomer admitted it was bad. He's fine now, but when it gets too humid, I take a little off the top for his comfort."
"He's got beautiful eyes," Kono said, "even if he does look like he's about to kill you."
"Took a week's worth of kitty treats to get him to stop going after my ankles for a while. He did the same to an ex-boyfriend too," Millie admitted. "Got so bad he stopped coming over to play." She shrugged. "No big loss. Guy had an ear-shattering scream, which I heard every time Lunkey clawed his ankles." Then she started laughing, putting her fingers to her lips.
"What?" Steve asked, curious.
"It's a bit rude," Millie admitted, still giggling.
"It can't be that bad," said Chin, also curious.
"Are you sure?" Millie asked.
"Trust us, we've seen and heard it all," Steve admitted.
"Okay," Millie said, mirth in her eyes. "Adam stopped coming over after Lunkey sunk his claws in to his ass during a session. The more he yelled and moved under the sheets, the more the fool cat attacked, until he caught him in the front and I do mean the front. I was useless for the next ten minutes. He went from sixty to zero in two seconds flat, and that wasn't all that went flat! I've been too afraid to have a guy over since!"
Later in the evening, as he was finishing up his paperwork, Steve realized Millie hadn't actually said anything about her family or her past. In fact, the story about Lunkhead had been the neatest side-step he'd ever seen.
Her new office had a poster of Garfield on the door, making him grin.
"I'd like mornings better if they started later," he read. He knocked on the door.
"Enter at your own risk," Millie said, not glancing up from the file in front of her, reading glasses perched on her face.
"You got a minute?" Steve asked.
"Only if you do," she relied, looking up. "Detective Williams' handwriting sucks."
He came in to her office, looking around, replying, "It usually does, but after six years, I've learned how to read it. It's almost like a code in itself." At the moment, her office held a desk, chairs, filing cabinet, bookcase, and her computer. There were no personal details, aside from the poster and an iPod docking station with plain speakers.
"Then somebody find me the code book for it, please, before I get cross-eyed," she groused. "What's up?"
"You never really said much about yourself," he said, sitting down in one chair. "You've obviously read our files, so you know how we work."
"I know you guys work well as a team, yes, and you have a damn good success rate. Beyond that, no," Millie admitted, taking off her glasses and rubbing the bridge of her nose.
"We trust each other," Steve said. "We know each other."
"That's nice; what's that have to do with me?"
"If you're going to work with us, we need to be able to trust you, and right now, none of us really know anything about you, nothing that matters. Aside from your grandmother and Lunkhead, we don't know anything about your family, about you."
Millie sighed heavily. "And just being good at my job isn't going to cut it?"
"Our jobs are often outside the office," Steve said. "We may need you out in the field."
"Not a chance. I'm a secretary, not a cop. I can shoot, abet reluctantly, but with my luck I'll get a ricochet and hit the guy behind me instead of my target. I can throw a punch but would rather avoid a fight than get into one. I have no interest in being in the field and I told Denning that and he agreed to it."
"Okay, fair enough," he replied, holding up his hands in agreement.
"As for family, I have four brothers in Portland, with a two, three, fifteen, and sixteen year gap between me and them. Two of them I get along with, two I don't."
"And your parents?"
"Three dads; one's dead, one doesn't give a damn, and one is a cop. Two moms; one I love to pieces, and the other one? Who knows? Last I heard, she was chasing this old guy," she replied, shrugging. "No love lost between us." She sighed tiredly, rubbing her eyes again. "I'm a private person by nature. You want me to trust you? Give me time and remember, that trust issue cuts both ways."
Steve nodded. She was right; trust took time on both sides.
Millie reached for a pink post-it notepad on the corner of her desk and wrote down a number. "This is my cell number, in case there's a problem." She handed the piece of paper to him.
He snagged the post-it pad and a pen from her cup and wrote down his cell number. "I'll get you the rest of the numbers from the others in a bit," he promised.
"I appreciate that," she said, studying the number.
He stood up. "Have a good night," he said, smiling.
"Likewise," she replied, smiling in return.
Steve left her office, hoping he'd at least managed to convince her they could be friends. Time would tell.